We’re looking for participants for a couple studies on lifting, happening this summer.

They address 2 limitations in the lifting field:

1) the small number of studies on everyday lifting tasks (groceries out of a trunk, bags of soil, etc)

2) the absence of information on how our body type affects lifting.

We're interested in how we adapt our lifting technique to suit personal factors, like weight, height and body shape. This has not been well studied and may help provide better safe-lifting advice and futher understand back injury mechanisms.

So, we’re looking for folks with either an ‘average’ build or a little ‘extra’ bodyweight (see below).

The intent of the study is not to show that anyone lifts incorrectly, but rather to demonstrate that a variety of techniques are used for any given lifting scenario - perhaps techniques that suit our body best (versus the standard ‘one-size-fits-all’ lifting approaches).

If anyone is interested, works with some folks that might be (fitness/lifestyle fields) or has any questions, I’d be happy to hear from you.